Monday, 25 April 2016

Little Red Riding Hood - Movie Review Hoodwinked

I remember watching Hoodwinked about a decade ago, in our time BK (before kids) and thinking it was pretty funny. Despite fairly mediocre reviews on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes I thought it might be fun to watch for a Sunday Night Movie Night with the minions, particularly with Molly's ongoing tumultuous relationship with the Big Bad Wolf, he is her ex-boyfriend after all (no seriously, he is - to read about it click here).

Movie Review: Hoodwinked

Image Courtesy of Amazon UK

What's in it for the Kids?
A mystery movie where you see four distinct perspectives on "what really happened" as animal police investigate finding who is responsible for stealing all recipes and ruining many forest/fairy tale land businesses.

What's in it for the Adults?
Witty, fast, and funny dialogue that is going to make the adults laugh just as much as the kids. All of you Seinfeld and The Tick fans can enjoy the never tiring, sarcastic voice work from Patrick Warburton. The movie also features the voice talents of Anne Hathaway, Glenn Close, Jim Belushi, XZibit, Anthony Anderson and Andy Dick. Alternative music fans, the film's soundtrack includes tunes by Ben Folds.

Best Parts of the Movie
The movie is an interesting reimagination of Little Red Riding Hood that forces both kids and adults to look beyond what they know from the original story. This movie gave us a great opportunity to talk to the kids about perspective and point of view (why we ask for both sides of the story during conflict resolution) as well as trying to solve their first mystery. Super competitive Molly was at the edge of her seat trying to be the first one to figure out who the recipe thief was, while Jack was hysterically giggling at the antics of the henchmen. Solid 80 minute length movie, which is ideal for watching time with young ones.

Worst Parts of the Movie
The animation for this movie is not good, even for 2005. My other beef with this movie is a reference made about "Fighting like a girl" despite the film featuring several strong female characters, come on, let's please stop teaching the next generation terrible sexist stereotypes.

Overall Rating
I will admit that my rating is slightly skewed by the fact that I watched it at home, for free instead of at a movie theatre. I would rate this movie 4/5. A number of the negative reviews I saw about this complained about how it wasn't as good as Shrek and how the animation was bad. Since I haven't seen Shrek in years (and never loved it anyway) and went in knowing about the mediocre animation it wasn't an issue. Molly and Jack have already requested Hoodwinked 2, which makes me a little nervous, since it's ratings are significantly lower than the first one, but hey my kids like The Little Mermaid 2, so there is no way to know until we try, and it's on Netflix Canada right now.

2 comments:

I can relate to liking a movie that didn't get a good review. I have a long history of loving books, movies and music that get bad reviews. I'm trying desperately to convince myself this doesn't mean I have bad taste.

About Me

My favorite colour is purple, I love dance-offs and making up diabolical plans that I find humorous in an evening over drinks that I have no real interest in carrying out. I love New York after my love for Toronto. I wasn't so sure about this parenthood thing, but my kids are pretty charming and raising them with my husband/ super friend Chris is the cherry on the sundae.